


Not Quite Fireworks

by e_cat



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: 4th of July, I can't believe I wrote the whole first half without Andrew, I literally fulfilled the quota with the second half that I begrudgingly wrote, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, subtle romantic gestures, there was just too much to fit in with Neil, things meant to be included: 4th of July and reuniting during a long-distance relationship, this is what happens when I try to write 1000 word things - I always start at the wrong place, well... somewhat subtle at least, well... those are sort of in there...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-12-12 06:52:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11731803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/e_cat/pseuds/e_cat
Summary: With a long distance relationship, Neil and Andrew don't see each other as often as they'd like. But with the Fourth of July coming up, maybe they'll get to see each other after all.





	Not Quite Fireworks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ephemeralsky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ephemeralsky/gifts).



> I wrote this as a part of the summer round of the [AFTG Exchange](http://www.aftgexchange.tumblr.com) for @nakasomethingkun.
> 
> Suggestions I chose to follow: 4th of July and long distance relationship and the ensuing reunion. That is, this takes place near the 4th of July, at least...

Neil Josten didn’t pay much attention to birthdays. He willfully ignored his own, did little more than slide a phone to Andrew on his, and in that tradition, America’s birthday was hardly a blip on Neil’s radar.

Other people turned the Fourth of July into an entire spectacle party. Other people woke up early, spent hours in the car, and made their way to a beach or a backyard. They made small talk with people they would have avoided otherwise; they drank more than they would have otherwise; they ate food they wouldn’t have otherwise. Other people turned a regular day into something else, like it was so unique that this country had come to be.

Maybe it was Neil’s life growing up that had made him feel this way. When he was nine, all he’d wanted was to see the fireworks. But the FBI had been watching, looking for evidence of his father’s criminal activity. Neil hadn’t understood that at the time, but he’d pieced it together since. He’d been told that he couldn’t go outside to watch from the lawn; he couldn’t even peek out the window. He’d sat on the living room floor and simply listened to the sound of them while his mother read a book. And then he’d gone to bed.

Since then, Neil had spent more than a few Fourths in other countries. Sometimes they'd stayed in a city with a large enough population of foreigners that their accents weren’t memorable, and sometimes there had been sparse parties tripping through the streets. When he was fourteen, Neil had heard the commotion of them outside his window, but he hadn’t understood what it was for. He hadn’t realized the significance until the next day, as his mother hurried him past someone’s abandoned American flag T-shirt in the street.

The past few years had been a little better for Fourth of July experiences. There had been waterskiing with Allison (well, watching Allison waterski while the rest of them had struggled to understand the physics of standing on water). There had been grilling with Wymack and Abby (they’d left Kevin with the grill for one minute, and all the burgers had wound up burnt). There had been, best of all, sitting in the house in Colombia with Andrew, lights off, trading truths as the fireworks exploded elsewhere.

But this year, Neil hadn’t given much thought to it. Nicky had said something back in May about petitioning his office for a party (and how it was totally going to work this year), but no one else had brought up any plans for the holiday. Neil, for his part, had expected practice. This was one of the nice things about professional Exy: there were no class schedules to get in the way. Neil’s coach, he knew, was more organized than most with regard to the practice schedule, but Neil kind of liked the predictability. Routine was a luxury that he could suddenly afford.

This was what Neil could expect from his routine: Monday and Wednesday, he was in the weight room in the morning, running light drills in the afternoon; Tuesday, he was running drills all day; Thursday, he played at least one scrimmage; Friday, there were drills in the morning, and maybe another scrimmage. Every third Friday, they had off, though, and Saturday was a free practice day – you were free to do what you wanted as long as it was practice. Sunday was their day off. These were facts that Neil could use to plan visits to Andrew. They were facts that he could use to predict what tomorrow would look like, and that was a comfort to someone who hadn’t always known where or if he would be by the end of the day.

Here was something that liked to muck with predictability: holidays. Holidays shifted trash day so that Neil’s trash was sitting at the curb for an extra day. Holidays closed businesses that he’d needed to get to. Holidays shoved aside the normal setup of stores for weeks beforehand, making it impossible to find the stupid bag of Oreos that had been _right there_ last week.

None of these inconveniences had reminded Neil of the Fourth quite yet – and the explosion of red-white-blue at the front of the grocery story was hardly noticeable against the backdrop of his team’s aggressive marketing scheme. Here was what reminded Neil that the Fourth of July was approaching: on Thursday, Coach Garces sat them down after their last scrimmage and said, “All right, here’s the holiday schedule for next week.”

Neil looked around at his teammates in confusion. He wasn’t quite at home here yet, wasn’t quite sure of himself when it came to speaking up in this group. He’d been so completely comfortable with the Foxes that it was weird, being uncertain now.

In any case, no one else on the team looked confused – or looked, in general; they were all just paying full attention to the coach. She continued, “Now, some of you – you know who you are – have let me down before and will be doing special practices with me all weekend. But the majority of you are getting the benefit of the doubt. You will keep up your training over the next week – I want you running drills on a court at least twice, and keep up your weight-room routines. A single one of you comes in unprepared or hungover next Thursday, and you’re all stuck with me for Labor Day.”

There was silence as the team processed this. Finally, one of the guys recruited around the same time as Neil – something Freeman – spoke up. “Are you serious, coach?”

“We only got a couple days last year,” added Samantha Li, who’d been with the team for a few years now.

“Maybe I’m being generous,” Coach Garces replied, standing up with her clipboard at her side, a general indication that she was done with their questions. As she headed for the exit, she added over her shoulder, “Or maybe I’m showing my gratitude that there was no rotten egg prank this Easter, Bell.” She tapped the doorframe with her clipboard. “Availability schedules for the court and weight room will be up in thirty minutes.”

As several of the players started insisting to Bell that they’d told him that Garces was onto him, Neil just sat there. Just a few years ago, Neil never would have dreamed of choosing anything over the opportunity for extra Exy practice. He would have been in Garces’ office right now, asking if he could join the group who were being punished. And yet –

“Josten!” Samantha Li called from across the meeting room. She was one of the better strikers on the team, so they were friendly. “Hey, you plan on sitting there all night?” she teased. “Or do you want to come out for celebratory drinks? I’m buying!”

A cheer went up from several of their teammates, and Samantha looked around at them disdainfully. “Sorry,” she said, “not for y’all.” Samantha could be kind of ruthless; Andrew, when Neil had first described her, had suggested without concern that if she ever met Allison, they would destroy either each other, or the world. Neil, personally, didn’t think that Samantha could quite measure up to Allison’s level of confidence and unflappable independence, but he wasn’t stupid enough to say so to her.

“Not planning on sitting here all night,” Neil replied, standing to prove his point, “but not going out either. Sorry.” He knew he didn’t sound apologetic, but he wasn’t sorry for that, either.

Samantha crossed her arms, but she didn’t look angry. “Plans?” she inquired.

Neil shrugged. He thought about how, just a few years ago, his plans would have been to hole up on the empty court and get in as much extra practice as he could. He thought about players he’d faced off against in college, the ones who’d already been tapped to join the US Court. He thought about Kevin and Ichirou, each awaiting greatness from him, but for different reasons.

He thought about Andrew.

Andrew, who expected from Neil only what Neil expected from himself, and only _because_ Neil expected it from himself. Andrew, who was possibly the best goalkeeper that Exy had ever seen, but had already told him, in not so many words, that he refused to be on _two_ Exy teams without Neil. Andrew, who claimed to hate Exy, but put in extra hours when Neil was there. Andrew, whom he could be with in just a few hours by plane.

“I might,” Neil said. “Not for sure, but – yeah. I’m pretty sure I have plans.” He grabbed his gear bag off the floor and offered the room at large what Andrew had once called his ‘I’ve hidden the explosives somewhere in this building’ smile. “See you all next week.”

 

 

Andrew had mixed feelings about airports these days. He still wasn’t a huge fan of flying, and he was even less a fan of crowds. The crowds were even more of a nuisance these days, with the periodic appearances of Andrew’s face on billboards and commercials (the PR team had only made the mistake of not giving him a heads-up once). There always seemed to be people taking his picture, people staring, people asking for autographs, no matter how many times he pulled knives on anyone who got too close. No matter how many times he categorically refused to give an autograph to anyone taller than he was (he’d picked that one up from Neil).

There was one good thing about the airport, however, and that was that it connected him to Neil. Well, occasionally, Andrew was just the slightest bit appreciative that it brought Aaron or Nicky to visit, too, but that hardly made a dent in the downsides of the airport. The true redemption of the place came from reunions with Neil in baggage claim.

But Andrew was running a little late today.

It was Neil’s fault, of course – he’d called during practice, of all things, and announced that he was about to leave for the airport. He’d given Andrew the arrival time, but with no advance notice, he hadn’t been able to leave early. He’d turned his usual shower into a thirty-second rinse, dumped his gear in a heap in the back of the car, and spent most of the drive breaking the speed limit, but still, he’d arrived after the plane. In fact, by the time he pushed through the doors, the conveyor belt was already starting to spit out luggage from Neil’s flight.

And yet, where was Neil? Andrew watched Neil’s obnoxious orange duffel bag make a lap around the carousel and tried not to think about the last time he’d seen Neil’s bag without Neil. There were a million scenarios that he was carefully not thinking about. He’d scanned every person in the crowd at least five times now – a full plane mulling around, grabbing their bags and greeting their loved ones. Except for Neil.

Neil, Neil, where was Neil? Andrew hated him for doing this to him. Minutes ago, every cell in his body had been zinging with the anticipation of seeing Neil again, and now every cell was screaming with possibility that he might not. He couldn’t stand the fact that he was always so far from Neil, that he was always so out of the loop on what was going on with Neil. He hated that it was possible for him to pass _hours_ with Neil hurt and him not knowing a thing about it.

Andrew was getting ready to sound the alarm, to muscle his way through airport security and damn the consequences. He was ready to search every plane in the airport. And then Neil walked out through the gate exit, chatting with a couple of flight attendants. Neil could start a conversation with anyone, as long as it was about Exy. Andrew was going to kill him.

Neil’s eyes were already darting around the room, even as his hands made gestures and his mouth kept moving. He found Andrew in a matter of seconds, his sentence turning into a smile that did stupid things to Andrew’s pulse. It really was uncanny how easily Neil could find him, and even more so how he could give Andrew these feelings like reminders of being alive.

And Neil was still grinning at him, but he was still talking to the flight attendants, like he had all the time in the world. It was almost unbearable – it would be, if Andrew didn’t like looking at that anticipatory expression so much. Neil’s gestures were faster now, and Andrew knew – he _knew_ – that Neil was talking about him. He’d seen it too many times now, and yet, every time was like the world was ending. Andrew hadn’t seen too many people talk that way about him – like they _wanted_ to be talking about him – before Neil.

Finally, Neil shed his flight attendant posse and sprinted over to Andrew. He still had that anticipation grin when he stopped less than an arm’s length from Andrew. He held out his hand near Andrew’s clavicle, waiting. Andrew responded by reaching up to put his own hand on Neil’s shoulder, a consent through similar action. Neil let his hand gently fall, his index finger curling around the side of Andrew’s neck while the others curved over the top of his shoulder. Andrew let himself rest his jaw against Neil’s thumb as his own thumb stroked along Neil’s jaw.

“I think your bag has gone around three times by now,” Andrew commented, and even after all these years, that quiet tone in his own voice was unfamiliar to him.

Neil was smiling that sort of smile that Andrew didn’t want to name, that it would hurt too much to name. “You could have grabbed it for me,” he pointed out.

“That is a service I only provide in the event of a kidnapping,” Andrew replied, keeping inflection out of his voice to hide that the association, the possibility, had infested his mind so recently.

Neil squeezed his shoulder, as if to say, _I’m here, I’m okay._ “I should get my bag before they think I’ve abandoned it,” he said. Most of other passengers had already left the area, and only the few who’d taken a detour after deplaning were still looking for their bags.

“It’s been a while since a federal agency had a word with you,” Andrew remarked, a sort of agreement.

Neither of them moved. For minutes, they just stood there, watching each other's faces, even though there were no surprises there. Then Neil said, “I don’t want to kiss you in an airport.”

Andrew did not laugh, but he was amused. He did have to admit that it was a very cliché idea, the kiss at baggage claim. He chose not to mention that they’d done it anyways, the first few times. Instead, he took his hand from Neil’s shoulder and grabbed his fingers with it instead. He told him, “I think you should get your bag, then.”


End file.
